Did He Throw His Babies?

Lawyers To Begin Arguments Today In Eugene Harris' Trial

DELAND - Six jurors were selected Monday to decide whether a DeLand man is guilty of trying to kill his two small sons by tossing them from a second-story window earlier this year in an angry rage.

Eugene Alfonzo Harris, 23, is charged with two counts of attempted second-degree murder and two counts of aggravated child abuse. If convicted, he faces a maximum 30 years in prison.

Opening statements in the case will begin at 9 a.m. today before Circuit Judge C. McFerrin Smith at the DeLand courthouse. Harris, who says he is not guilty, is housed in the Volusia County Branch Jail.

Ramona Mims, the children's mother, attended Monday's jury selection. She has said in a deposition that early on the morning of Jan. 13, she argued in her DeLand home with Harris, who had been drinking and was angry. She then left him in the bedroom with the boys.

As she returned to the bedroom, she passed Harris in the hallway. He then said, ``I told you if you ever made me mad, I was going to see could they fly,'' Mims said in her deposition.

In the bedroom, she spotted an open window and saw through it that her sons, Jalen Mims, then 7 months, and Eugene Harris, then 23 months, had been thrown out.

In a recent interview, Mims said the children are doing fine, but Eugene Harris Jr., now 2 1/2, still has ``a few nightmares.'' The children were treated for head injuries in the intensive care unit at Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children & Women in Orlando.

The jurors and one alternate were selected after several glitches Monday, including a Seville man who talked to five prospective jurors about the case in a courthouse hallway. The man, John Tolbert, had appeared before Smith on Monday morning on a charge of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

A bailiff was informed that Tolbert was talking to the yellow-badged jurors. When questioned by Smith about the conversation, jurors said Tolbert told them he had known Harris for a long time.

``He said he's known him since he was little,'' a juror said. Tolbert told the prospective jurors that Harris ``isn't mentally all there. He got drunk one night and dropped his kids out the window.''

Another problem was Harris' attire. He walked in the courtroom wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. Normally, inmates dress in street clothes to avoid the perception of guilt associated with prison garb.

Smith instructed Assistant State Attorney Jim Dauksch and Assistant Public Defender Jay Crocker to investigate whether Harris was given an opportunity to change clothes. When prison guards gave Harris a choice, Harris said he didn't change clothes because he didn't understand why he was going to court. Harris said he wanted to wear civilian clothing instead.

The judge instructed Harris to return to jail and change, which delayed jury selection until early afternoon.